'Forgotten Footprints'

A recent paper published by University of Birmingham Palaeobiology & Palaeoenvironments undergraduate Luke Meade, PhD student Andrew Jones and Senior Research Fellow and Lapworth Museum Academic Keeper Dr Richard Butler, highlights the importance of ancient climate as a driving force for the rise of reptiles.

A set of largely overlooked fossil footprints preserved on sandstone slabs from Hamstead in northwest Birmingham, which lay in the Lapworth Museum of Geology for more than a century, have recently received a new lease of life. The University of Birmingham team, led by Luke Meade, analysed the 300 million year old footprints using cutting-edge photogrammetric technology. This approach allowed the team to identify the organisms responsible for making the footprints and therefore to better understand the world in which they lived.